The operator of the National Car Test centres has been criticised for conducting “a sham investigation” into the complaints of an employee who threatened to expose regular breaches of the company’s rules at one of its centres in Cork.

A man who claims he was unfairly dismissed from a Cork NCT centre said he suffered a nervous breakdown as a result of working there.

An administrator who was sacked from his position at the country’s busiest NCT centre had claimed inspectors were carrying out tests on their friends’ vehicles a month before the company commenced disciplinary proceedings against him.